The beginning of this year has been the driest on record and the exotic plants in the garden have needed extra attention and water to keep them in reasonable health.
On the 4th April the beach looked quite idyllic and rather summery for autumn. The weather was so mild and the sea so calm that the start of the Bell's Beach Rip Curl Surfing Pro had to be postponed for several days.
However, the weather changed three weeks later creating big seas and widely spaced waves.
This is Bird rock in summer mode a few years ago...
... and then at high tide when the waves were rolling.
In this photo Bird Rock can be seen from the other direction and the cliff-hugging plants that are able to tolerate the prevailing westerly winds of winter.
It is such wintry weather conditions that result in Moonah melaleuca lanceolata, growing such beautiful branches.
This week's ikebana features two more heads of the Hydrangea macrophyla (that I used a couple of weeks ago in a basket arrangement), and a branch of Moonah.
When thinking about arranging the hydrangea I realised that it would work well with the large green bowl-shaped vessel made by Isabella Wang. Because the arrangement was to be placed in the 'niche' in the living room I had to take into account that it would be seen through 180 degrees. The photos below are against a back-drop.
This first photo shows the view of the arrangement when coming from the kitchen.
This view is directly from the front...
...and the final view is from the right hand side. I was pleased that in each of the views there was open space to be seen at the lip of the vessel.
This was the second version of the arrangement. Unfortunately I did not photograph the first version that had three large triangular lines, made from papyrus stems, projecting above the rim of the vessel. When I removed them, because they looked wrong, the thought came to me that I should 'let the materials speak for themselves'. The lines were an additional design element that did not relate to the materials. It made me think about Norman Sparnon's question '...What is the purpose..' of the ikebana?
These days I re-frame this question to, what is the subject of the ikebana? In this case it was the hydrangea, not my other design ideas.
Greetings from Christopher
5th May 2019
Thanks for sharing all three views of this lovely arrangement.
ReplyDeleteYour hydrangea macrophyla is beautiful and I like the arrangement you made using them with the Moonah section in the lovely Isabella Wang green bowl.
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